Four days after comparing President Trump refusing to concede the election to Hitler and the Holocaust, CNN International and PBS host Christiane Amanpour offered a mealy-mouthed non-apology on Monday’s show, telling viewers that she “shouldn’t have juxtaposed the two thoughts” and that she “regret[s] any pain that my statement may have caused.”
And that, dear American readers, is what your tax dollars are going to support. Talk about a lack of a return on investment.
Amanpour waited until the end of the liberal snoozefest of a show to “comment on my program at the end of last week” when she “observed the 82nd anniversary of Kristallnacht, as I often do” as “[i]t’s the event that began the horrors of the Holocaust.”
She then got to her point and faux mea culpa about how she tied it to “President Trump's attacks on history, facts, knowledge, and truth” when she “shouldn't have juxtaposed the two thoughts” as “Hitler and his evil stand alone in history.”
“I regret any pain that my statement may have caused. My point was to say how democracy can potentially slip away and how we must always zealously guard our democratic values,” she concluded before signing off.
Here was Amanpour’s awful proclamation on the November 12 show (click “expand”):
This week, 82 years ago, Kristallnacht happened. It was the Nazis' warning shot across the bow of our human civilization that led to genocide against a whole identity. And, in that tower of burning books, it led to an attack on fact, knowledge, history and truth. After four years of a modern-day assault on those same values by Donald Trump, the Biden/Harris team pledges a return to norms, including the truth. And, every day, Joe Biden makes presidential announcements about good governance and the health and security of the American people, while the great brooding figure of his defeated opponent rages, conducting purges of perceived enemies and preventing a transition.
No democracy can survive unless the majority of people at least accept the same set of facts. And so here are some. According to a Reuters poll, nearly 80 percent of the American people, Republicans and Democrats, accept the result of the 2020 election. Yes, so far, Trump has won 72 million votes to Biden's 77 million, but, no, there have been no serious protests on the streets contesting the result, while secretaries of state around the nation, Republican and Democrat, say there has been no meaningful fraud, and they have found nothing that would overturn the result.
So much for decency, norms, and yes, #FactsFirst. Let this be a lesson to CNN staff that, no matter how vicious the rhetoric, you shouldn’t have to worry about facing punishment.
Since this was a PBS broadcast, there were no formal commercial breaks. But to learn more about the MRC’s Conservatives Fight Back campaign, go here.
To see the relevant CNN International and PBS transcript from the November 16 show, click “expand.”
CNN International/PBS’s Amanpour & Company
November 17, 2020
12:25 a.m. EasternCHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: And finally, a comment on my program at the end of last week. I observed the 82nd anniversary of Kristallnacht, as I often do. It’s the event that began the horrors of the Holocaust. I also noted President Trump's attacks on history, facts, knowledge, and truth. I shouldn't have juxtaposed the two thoughts. Hitler and his evil stand alone in history and I regret any pain that my statement may have caused. My point was to say how democracy can potentially slip away and how we must always zealously guard our democratic values.
